8GB Fuze in hand. Review pending.

I just picked up an 8GB Fuze from a Best Buy in PA. So far, I’m really liking the build quality and new scroll wheel on it. I haven’t played with it much, but I will. I’ll be updating this with things as I find out about them. To preface, I’ve had many MP3 players, (RCA Lyra 1 and 2, Creative MuVo, Sansa e240, e280) and my primary use for them is to listen to music. I’m not overly concerned with video, pictures or audiobooks.

So far:

  1. Player takes 6 seconds to power on fully. There doesn’t seem to be a sleep function, as when you push the power button up, it gives the ‘Goodbye’ screen.

  2. Out of the box, the Fuze worked in my Altec Lansing inMotion i510 speaker dock. It charged and played music with no problems.

  3. The menu navigation is nice and quick. Still about the same as the e200 series and I’m guessing the View.

  4. The new scroll wheel is great. Button clicks are crisp and it just feels ‘right’, IMHO.

  5. Connected the player to Ubuntu 7.10.  Player went into ‘Connected’ mode.  2 Drives were displayed on the desktop, ‘Sansa Fuze’ and ‘NO NAME’ (my microSD card had no name).  I then dragged and dropped a few mp3 folders over to the microSD card.  I then unmounted the microSD card and then unmounted the Fuze.  Disconnected the player, it immedately refreshed the database.  I was able to play the music.  I then shut off the player and turned it back on. On reboot, the player DID NOT have to update the DB with the microSD card data. This is a HUGE win for expansion, as the DB needs to be written to once as long as the card is NOT REMOVED from the player. 

If there is anything else you want to know about it, let me know. I’m going to be transferring music to it now and playing with a 1 gig microSD card I have laying around. I’ll update more later. I hope this helps.

Message Edited by jon595 on 03-26-2008 08:10 PM

How is the silver faceplate with finger prints? Is the backing “rubberized”? Thanks!

The silver faceplate is quite nice actually.  I was hoping for it in black, but I’m not unhappy about it.  The back is rubberized and feels good.  It feels just like my Motorola Krzr if you have ever seen one of those.  You can’t really see the fingerprints on the front faceplate unless you really look (on the player that is NOT the screen).  The screen picks up and shows fingerprints quite easily, but this is to be expected.  Does that help?

Thanks for the info! Looking forward to more of your thoughts after you’ve had a chance to play with it.

Well, I just transferred 500 some songs to it in MTP mode through Media Monkey in XP with SP2.  After I disconnected it, it took less than 5 seconds for the DB to update.  I was floored!  My old e280 would take over 5 minutes to do that!  Kudos to Sandisk for fixing that.

@jon595 wrote:
Well, I just transferred 500 some songs to it in MTP mode through Media Monkey in XP with SP2.  After I disconnected it, it took less than 5 seconds for the DB to update.  I was floored!  My old e280 would take over 5 minutes to do that!  Kudos to Sandisk for fixing that.

 

That’s comparable to the amount of time the Clip takes to refresh its database when songs have been transferred in MTP mode.

Hows the sound quality?  :slight_smile:

Sounds identical to my 4GB Clip.  Awesome.

I’m quite happy with the sound quality.  I’m listening through Sony EX-51’s right now, but once I get back to my office at work tomorrow, I’ll listen through my Ultimate Ears Super Fi 5’s, which are amazing and give me a better feel for how good the Fuze is.

What about battery life? Is it realy 24 hours?!

I’m not really sure about battery life yet. I’ve been listening to it mostly at my computer plugged in to an AC adapter.  I did play it for an hour in the gym and then an hour in my car and the bar didn’t drain at all. 

I’ve been listening to the player at work all day so far on a pair of Ultimate Ears Super Fi 5 in ear monitors.  I must say, the quality of the Fuze is great.  I don’t hear any background noise in the menu system when browsing music or anything.  I even turned the volumn down almost all the way just to see if I could hear anything, and I could not.

I have been testing the player out with some classical music (Beethoven, Bach), techno (Paul Van Dyk, Oakenfold), metal (Parkway Drive, old Metallica, Avengend Sevenfold, Symphony X), rock (lostprophets, Wolfmother) and some hip-hop (Optimus Rhyme, MC Frontalot, MC Chris… nerdcore…).  Just to give you guys the idea of what I’ve been listening too.

Wolfmother … I approve!

My first test song for SQ on my DAPs is “Hunter” by Björk.

:wink:

Message Edited by PromisedPlanet on 03-28-2008 12:15 PM

For those of you who purchased the 8GB Fuze was the sansasessions insert inside the packaging?  Were you able to go to the website and request the free microSD card?

Go Sansa!

@sansame wrote:

For those of you who purchased the 8GB Fuze was the sansasessions insert inside the packaging?  Were you able to go to the website and request the free microSD card?

Yes and Yes.  The insert contains a code that you enter at http://sansasessions.com/registration.php

Yes and Yes. :slight_smile:

Do anyone know how long does it need to be fuly charged?

@fluxy wrote:
Do anyone know how long does it need to be fuly charged?

Since mine came already 2/3 charged out of the box I really don’t know.  It didn’t take long to top it off.  It was nice to be able to play with the menus and included music, pics and video immediately.  I really liked that.

Does the Fuze do gapless playback?